A number of central, recurring topics is treated in several episodes
of SPACE aab, and this is my short account of some of them. They are more
or less familiar in this or similar forms to us even nowadays...

Artificial Intelligence and Human Faults

There is a special character in the series, who is largely affected by
this problem: Marine Captain Shane Vansen. And this is the background:

When (look also below) the reproduction rate of mankind dropped down
during the first half of the 21. century, in the first place some helpers
were needed to match the demand for work, which couldn't carried out by
usual machines. So the silicates were created, at principle mobile computer
units, linked together to a central CPU by some sort of modem, and strongly
resembling humans. The only easy visible deviation are the crosshairs in
their eyes, maybe an intended feature for identifying purposes for humans.
These androids remained loyal until an irresponsible technician, who was
disappointed for some reason with his work, did a thing resembling the
criminal and widespread abuse of programming of our present time: he introduced
a virus into the CPU and that caused a major struggle subsequently. "Take
a Chance" was the name of that virus, and it had catastrophical consequences.
The silicates began to deny human orders and ultimately killing humans,
originally surely unable to do such things, by pure gambling attitude.
Than even a war arised, and finally, only partly reinforced by in Vitro
troops (see below), the shrunk mankind gained the victory and the remaining
silicates took some old space vessels and escaped into space with them.

By the way, who were the real terrorists? The silicates, irritated by
the virus or the technician, who introduced intentionally that fault into
their computer parts?

Shane Vansens parents were also commissioned Marine officers, and some
day, when Shane was a five years old child, while her sisters were even
younger, a silicate group attacked and finally killed her parents while
the children were watching it. This was shown in the pilot and more extensively
presented in the episode "Dark Side of the Sun". The trauma of the young
Shane, witnessing that horror in an age, in which she could later only
remember especially strong events, shaped the character of the woman very
much. And so "Dark Side of the Sun" and already partly the pilot showed
the fears, nightmares and dark sides of the otherwise sympathetic Shane
Vansen, who killed ultimately with visible satisfaction silicates especially
in "Dark Side of the Sun", which was a slight horror for her friends -
her fellow Marines - too.

And also her claustrophobia had to do with that traumatic event, because
she and her sisters had hidden in a tight closet, while watching the murder.

Another episode showing this special "relation" of Vansen and the silicates
was "Bacchus", when she fought a billard duel with the silicate owner of
a bar on the entertainment station. For pure hatred and anger because of
her horrible memory, Vansen missed a point, nearly proving fatal for her
game against the hated silicate, when he demasked himself.

Not in the series, but in the well written novel "Demolition Winter"
by Peter Telep (Harper Prism), strongly based onto Morgans & Wongs
series, the fight of Shane Vansen with her feelings is illuminated in even
more detail, when she was forced to work together with a reprogrammed silicate,
who was no more linked to the CPU.

Genetical Engineering, Racism etc.: the In Vitroes

Two of the Marines of the TV series are in Vitroes: Lt.Col. T.C. McQueen
and especially 1.Lt. Cooper Hawkes are the persons, which demonstrate the
related problems.

Some major environmental problems seemed to have degraded the mankinds
ability to reproduce themselves in a natural manner in the first half of
the 21. century. The despite this tendency advanced technical-scientific
possibilities were than exploited in two ways: creating human-like androids
("silicates") as helpers of any kind and subsequently also the creation
of humans by pure synthetical means, the in Vitroes. No cloning whatever,
but arranging genes considered as "good" in various manners, these were
also human beings, "only" lacking two important ingredients of personal
evolution. First, they had no parents. Logically, because they were created
and grown up in tanks without being conscious up to a physical age of 18
years and then really "born". There the second problem has arisen: they
lacked personal experiences of lower ages, therefore they were in the first
place like childs, despite their adult bodies.

In the episode "Who monitors the Birds?" this past of Cooper Hawkes
is shown in fragmentary flashbacks. Wondering about the position of the
navel at the neck I asked myself, if this was introduced for technical
reasons or because a very bad intention of the creators of the in Vitroes.
However, there is a long "tradition" of using malevolent, racist expressions
like the German "Untermensch", the English "Nigger" and else, and the expression
"Nippleneck" derived from the navel position of the in Vitroes seems to
be another step in this devilish abuse of language.

The in Vitro schools were another twisted institutions. Also in the
above mentioned episode it is seen, that they were at the time, when Cooper
Hawkes was educated, only aiming to make warriors against the enemies of
natural born humans. Because the in Vitroes were as varied as natural borns,
most of them didn't fit well into the required scheme and more, discriminated
by many people in very nasty, often physical harmful ways, they denied
of course almost generally to fight against the silicates, the main purpose
of the in Vitro education at that time. The prejudice and the hatred incited
by an accident could be seen in the episodes "Mutiny" - a black(!) executive
officer of the cargo carrier ship discrimated Cooper to no end - and also
the workers, who took an accident at work as reason for an unfounded lynch
trial in the pilot.

For me this shows a nasty truth: however they are considered to being
different, at all time some minority will suffer discrimination and/or
racism by the majority; it is the most easy way especially for simple minded
people, to assign faults and problems, which are mostly self-made or by
others of the majority.

Other bad pieces of in Vitro experiences were shown in "Dear Earth",
when McQueen reported the slavery and other human rights of in Vitroes
ignoring behaviour of natural borns, when he worked in an ammuntion depot;
and also in "Mutiny" the way, in which unborn in Vitroes were designated
as "volunteers"(!) by the otherwise not so racist Captain of the cargo
carrier ship.

Finally the problems of the in Vitroes due to their lack of parents
and natural born education by such are often present in the series, eventually
culminating when one in Vitro (McQueen) asks another (Hawkes): "Who has
said, that you are an human?"

But there was another event in "Eyes", which showed the extent from
racism widespread even in the leading political class, when the UN General
Secretary was murdered by an in Vitro and subsequently McQueen and Hawkes
(and certainly all other in Vitro military personnel) were ordered into
a loyality test, a rude invasion of their personal integrity. This proved
again the above point: many of the in Vitroes struggled to find a job to
make their living, and so it has been certainly easy, to pay one of them
to murder the UN General Secretary. Besides this job was supposed to be
at least as dangerous for the actual holder of the position, as today to
be the US president. There are simply enough people, who would be relieved
and/or glad, to see a president dead...

About War and the involved (Human) Beings

It is often commonplace, that war is bad, even horrible, but the only science
fiction series I know so far, which shows that fact without any mercy,
is SPACE aab. Because we see the five young Marines and their elder superior
officer (McQueen) during this war, there are many facets of this horror
throughout the series, and so I will only remember and comment of some
of it. Despite the often brutal events shown, this series is clearly meant
ANTI-war, and this is another point, which makes it alongside with the
"realistic" presentation in every respect unique and examplary. And another
truth is, that the war pulls out all the devilish tendencies lurking in
human (and supposedly also other) beings.

Civilean victims have become more and more widespread in modern times
with the advent of far reaching, wide area devastating weapons as aircraft
bombs and rockets, and also in SPACE we witness two massacres among such
persons, the two colonist groups of Vesta and Tellus. Besides a few dozens
from the Tellus mission, all of the 450 colonists were wiped out, without
any knowledge why and by whom.

As part of their business, US Marines are used to lose fellow Marines
since the foundation of the Corps in 1775. And the events in SPACE are
not a bit different in this compared with such in the past history or in
present times: in the pilot, the not yet commissioned Michael Pagodin was
killed by enemy sniper fire during the final training mission of the recruit
group. And in nearly every episode we see Marines lose their life, as they
did in Vietnam, World War II, the Great War and in earlier times in considerable
numbers. Of course, this is very hard to handle for Marines, who are willing
to risk their lifes for their fellow Marines on a daily base, one of the
key confessions of the US Marines. As a general rule, the more close they
are, the more the surviving suffer from the loss of them. That's a reason,
for which for example Captain Vansen tried - largely in vain! - not to
become to close to the other members of the Wild Cards. And now remember
the losses, especially in the episodes "Dark Side of the Sun", "Ray Butts",
"Stay with the Dead", "Level of Necessity", "Never no More", "The angriest
Angel", and especially in "Toy Soldiers" and the last three episodes, beginning
with "Sugar Dirt".

The episode "Sugar Dirt" showed another facet of war: without support
in the enemy controlled area, the other threats than the usual ones by
enemy soldiers are shown again without mercy: the threat of starvation,
illness, lack of ammunition and so on. And also the horror to take away
usable equipment from already dead Marine fellows... That time there was
good reason for Cooper Hawkes to complain, and Shane Vansens reaction showed
clearly, that even the tough captain was not immune against this mental
stress.

Other nasty actions are shown in "Stay with the Dead" and "Stardust",
in which the general big respect of Marines for their dead comrades was
sacrificed for tactical respective strategical reasons.

And in "The angriest Angel" McQueen crossed clearly the line, when he
threatened the existance of the silicate (Elroy model) for gaining valuable
informations about the home base of the advanced Chig fighter. Despite
the complain of the devilish silicate (see below) sounds ridiculous, because
he was himself ignoring all rules of humanity, this behaviour might have
taken McQueen befor a war justice trial, if it would became known to others.

But the resistence of 1.Lt. Paul Wang against McQueens actions in that
situation was limited because of the hatred, which that Elroy model silicate
had previously incited in Wang by torturing him continously and pressing
to a statement, which lasted heavy on Wangs psyche, as it could be seen
in "Pearly", when Wang betrayed his Wild Card friends, McQueen and the
British Major. Torture is also common in todays world and especially at
groups in war with each other - there is in my view indeed not much hope,
that this will change in near future.

A generally seldom event - against the opinion of many people - happened
in "Toy Soldiers". In a bid, assigned as "John Wayne behaviour" by 1.Lt.
Nathan West, an irresponsible, inexperienced Marine 2.Lt. sacrificed some
other recruits for the totally nonsensical wish to become a "hero". Indeed,
the drill instructors and superiors try to avoid such developments of new
members of the Corps. And so McQueen once said to Hawkes, when the last
stated, that he will be with the others to fight a nearly hopeless battle,
that "it is always hard to tell, if it is brave or stupid".

And in "Ray Butts" you could see quite clearly the result, when a Marine
belongs too long to the Corps while suffering war times and losses of comrades:
the Lt.Col. Ray Butts behaved really malevolent after losing his friends
of his recon squadron, and about Vansens opinion, "nobody is born being
that bad", he said later, that she was partly right, but that he already
started as a bad person, only becoming even more malevolent after too many
incidents.